Top TV Stations and TV Station Websites Revealed

The Media Audit FYI
August 2013

A new report from The Media Audit highlighting the top
local TV stations and TV station websites across 80 U.S. cities
reveals that Salt Lake City's KSL-TV ranks as the most visited
local TV station website among more than 400 measured TV station
websites. According to the report, 66.9% of the Salt Lake City's
metro area adult population has visited the station's website,
KSL.com within the past 30 days. The figure represents more than
one million unique monthly visitors to the NBC affiliated local TV
website. Raleigh-Durham's WRAL.com ranked second in the
report, with 54.4% of Raleigh's metro area 18+ population having
visited the site in the past 30 days, followed by Charlottesville,
Virginia's WVIR-TV (53.6% visited NBC29.com in the past 30 days).
Ranking fourth is Southern New Hampshire's WMUR-TV (52.9% visited
WMUR.com in the past 30 days), followed by Cedar Rapids, Iowa's
KCRG-TV, with 50.4% of the metro area's 18+ population having
visited KCRG.com within a 30 day period.

In addition to measuring visits to local TV station websites
within the past 30 days, the study also provides insight into the
number of persons exposed to each local TV station in a 7-day
period, and how much additional reach the website adds to the local
TV station's news programming.

In the case of Salt Lake City's KSL-TV, the website adds
considerable reach to the TV station's early evening news audience.
When the website is added, the total unduplicated net reach is
increased to 76.7%. As a result, the website adds an
additional 684,000 adults 18+ to the TV station's early evening
news audience. The new net figure results in KSL-TV's website
having the greatest impact on its TV station's ratings insofar as
the biggest increase in percentage points added to total reach.

Other TV stations that experienced significant percentage point
gains as a result of adding its website ratings to its early
evening news TV ratings include Toledo, Ohio's WUPW-TV, in
which the website audience adds 37.9 percentage points to the TV
station's past 7- day TV ratings and Charlottesville,
Virginia's WVIR-TV which grows its total reach by nearly 29
additional percentage points. The data points to the growing
importance that website audiences have on TV ratings.

The same report further identifies those local TV stations with
the highest early evening news TV ratings. Included among the top
ten stations for past 7- day TV viewing are a number of
stations that are part of smaller markets. Ranked at number
one is Decatur, Illinois' WAND-TV, which reaches 55.6% of all
adults 18+ in the greater Decatur metro area with their early
evening news. Greenville-Spartanburg's WYFF-TV ranks second in the
national study, reaching 53.5% of its metro area's 18+ population,
followed by Asheville's WLOS-TV with a past 7- day rating of
51.3. Tyler-Longview, Texas' KLTV-TV ranks fourth, reaching
48.3% of the metro area's 18+ population, followed by
Springfield/Decatur, Illinois' WICS-TV, reaching 48.5% of its metro
area 18+ population.

In larger markets such as New York City, the addition of a local
TV station's website audience to its past 7- day early evening
news TV ratings result in even more significant gain in overall
reach. For example, the addition of New York City's WNBC-TV
web audience to its local early evening news TV ratings result in
an increase of more than 1.3 million. In Los Angeles, the website
adds nearly 1.2 million to the local TV station's 7-day reach, and
in Chicago, WLS-TV adds an additional 1 million to its total net
reach when the website audience is factored in to its past 7-
day early evening news viewing audience.

A summary of findings from this report will be made available at
the upcoming NAB Small Market Television Exchange Convention in
Phoenix September 26-28. Or, for more information, contact
The Media Audit.